At Rock Therapeutic Services, our speech-language pathologists will evaluate your child’s language strengths and weaknesses to determine their needs.
What is Receptive and Expressive Language?
If your child has problems understanding what you and others are saying, they may have trouble with receptive language. Children with a receptive language disorder may have difficulty grasping the meaning of words in their everyday life.
Regarding expressive language, some children may have problems speaking or expressing themselves. Your child may understand what other people say, but they may have trouble talking and often can’t express their feelings and thoughts.
Contact our Seattle Speech Therapists for your consultation.
How We Can Help.
A few indicators of receptive or expressive language disorder
Common Questions & Helpful FAQs
What is language?
Language is a rule-governed behavior and defined by comprehension and use of spoken, written, and other communication symbol systems. Spoken and written language are composed of receptive (listening and reading) and expressive (speaking and writing) components.
What causes Language Disorders in a child?
Language disorders can have many possible causes. A child’s language disorder may exist in conjunction with other disorders/disabilities such as autism spectrum disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or birth defects such as Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, and fragile X syndrome.
In many cases, the cause of a language disorder is not known.
Can learning more than one language cause my child to be confused or delayed?
Learning two languages in childhood does not cause confusion or language delay. Bilingual children reach their developmental milestones at the same time as monolingual children. A child’s speech or language delay will be present in both languages, but it is not caused by learning the two.
How clear should my child’s speech be at a certain age?
- By 18 months, 25% of the child’s speech should be intelligible to familiar people (caregivers, parents,
loved ones). - By 24 months, 50 to 75% of their speech should be intelligible to familiar people.
- By 36 months, 75 to 100% of the child’s speech should be intelligible to familiar people.
- By 4 years of age, a child should usually be understood, including by people who are unfamiliar to them.
How can I help my child with Expressive or Receptive Language at home?
Pretend Play is a great way to target expressive language. Your child can work on storytelling or sequencing activities when pretending or building a scenario. Asking questions like “Who should get a cookie?” or “Where should we go?” allows them to create the scenario with their creativity and imagination.
Books are a great way to elicit expressive language! When reading books to your child, ask open-ended questions that your child can answer. Asking your child questions like “How is the boy feeling?” and “What is the girl doing?” allows your child to generate their answers.
I Spy is a wonderful game to play at home! Depending on the receptive language skill your child is working on, you can cater the I Spy game to that specific skill. For example, if your child is working on semantics, you can say, “I spy…. Something tiny.”
Reading books to your child is another way to develop receptive language skills! You can use books to build your child’s vocabulary by asking your child to identify aspects of the characters in the book. For example, you can ask them to “point to the boy” or “point to the happy dog.”